As a maintenance or facilities manager, your challenge is to keep the machines running at a time where operational budgets are shrinking, whilst the cost of maintaining and repairing aging equipment continues to increase.
To get maintenance costs under control, organisations must look for new ways to get the most out of their assets, maximise uptime, and plan for unexpected failures. Here’s how having the right strategy in place can help.
The old approach and its impact
Many organisations still work to a calendar-based maintenance model – the asset is maintained because the manual says it’s time to do so. This has two potential, unwanted outcomes:
- Over-maintenance of a lesser-used asset can lead to maintenance-induced failures – as well as the added cost of unnecessary parts and labour.
- Insufficient maintenance of a heavily-used asset can lead to higher-cost breakdowns and longer downtimes.
Defining and implementing the right maintenance strategy, one that’ is specifically designed for an asset operating in a given context, will ensure that the asset lasts longer. This then raises the question of what the right strategy actually is.
What is the right maintenance strategy?
Condition-based maintenance builds on calendar-based maintenance by leveraging asset usage-data and condition checks to determine the frequency and type of maintenance to carry out.
However, leading organisations in asset-intensive industries are experiencing one constant challenge - to deliver maximum return on assets by going beyond the benefits of condition-based maintenance.
The right maintenance strategy uses maintenance plans and forecasts. These are paired with accurate data, feedback and detailed maintenance task analysis to predict downtime and improve performance.
How analytics can help you predict the future
Using analytics, you can gain additional insight, predict failures and improve reliability.
For example, if your asset management program discovers that a compressor is using more energy than expected, you can schedule maintenance to fix or replace the unit before it fails. This proactive approach enables maintenance managers to optimise productivity, reduce repair costs, and lower energy use.
Developing your maintenance strategy
Maintenance strategy development practices provide a structured approach to defining potential and functional failures (failure modes) and their associated risk. This leads to the creation of cost-effective maintenance tasks.
Doing so ensures that the right task is performed at the right time, adding value to your organisation’s bottom line.
Your next steps: Finding the right partner for asset management
Partner with a digital business consultancy who’s experienced in asset management best practices and leading business systems. At Columbus, our expertise in both asset management and Microsoft Dynamics business systems means we can work closely with you to identify the right technology and deliver cost-effective, easy-to-use asset management solutions.
We’ll assist you in developing your maintenance strategy. Together, we can identify and configure the right tools to strengthen your ability to provide data-rich insights. For example, the root cause of breakdowns, detailed analysis of failure trends and predictive maintenance patterns, thereby optimising your maintenance plans and budgets to meet predicted needs.
If you’ve got more questions on the services we can offer and how they might benefit your business, why not reach out to us? A member of our expert team will be able to help.
